Leonard brilliant as Raptors push Magic to brink

Leonard brilliant as Raptors push Magic to brink

ORLANDO — Toronto Raptors fans are finding out it’s nice to have a destroyer of worlds on your side, instead of always having to face one.

LeBron James went West, preventing yet another meeting with Toronto, Kawhi Leonard headed North and now, everything has changed.

Leonard was brilliant, scoring 34 points in a 107-85 win after labouring through the previous game due to the flu, as Toronto took a commanding lead against the Orlando Magic on Sunday night. It’s the first 3-1 advantage in a playoff series in franchise history and this is only the second three-game post-season winning streak. A win at home on Tuesday would send the Raptors on to the second round.

Breakout star Pascal Siakam, who carried the Raptors with Leonard ailing on Friday, was solid again early (the two forwards combined for more than half of the club’s 58 points in the first half) and Leonard scored at will throughout.

Toronto Raptors’ Kyle Lowry, front right, falls to the floor after he is fouled by Orlando Magic’s Evan Fournier, left, during the first half in Game 4 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, Sunday, April 21, 2019, in Orlando, FlaJohn Raoux /
AP

Siakam was quiet from there, but both Serge Ibaka and Norman Powell chipped in off of the bench (16 for Powell, 13 for Ibaka) and Orlando got a big night from Aaron Gordon (25 points), finally a decent Evan Fournier outing (19 points, but 2-8 three-point shooting) but not much from elsewhere.

“It’s not one man, it’s a team,” Leonard said after the game. “We all did it collectively all year … I feel like we all had our hands on the game. It’s everybody, it’s not just me out there.”

Indeed, and the emergence of Siakam had presented the Magic with a challenging riddle: How to slow down both the superstar Leonard and the emerging third-year forward.

“That’s going to be tough to do,” Danny Green had warned beforehand. “(Sending) multiple defenders on two players is tough to do so (the Magic) have to pick their poison.

“If they’re doubling one guy, there’s an opportunity. If they’re doubling two guys there’s a lot of opportunities, now there’s a lot of scrambling, there’s a lot of open people,” Green had said.

“We’ve just got to be smart, make the right plays and find guys and I think those guys are very capable of doing so.” Toronto proved that most noticeably midway through the first quarter, when Kyle Lowry drove, found Marc Gasol at the top of the key, got the ball back under the hoop, kicked to Siakam in the corner who found Green for a wide-open three-pointer.

It was the only three the Raptors would hit on the first six attempts of the game, which was the only reason why it was close at that point. By halftime, the lead had grown to 16 points.

Few, if any teams can handle the two-pronged threat presented by Leonard (who finished sixth in the league in scoring and is third in the playoffs so far) and Siakam, who is playing huge minutes without looking noticeably tired. Throw in perennial all-star Lowry, former all-star Gasol, champion Green, Ibaka and the rest and this is quite a formidable group. One Orlando can’t come close to matching up with. The Magic doesn’t have the horses. Few teams do.

“We obviously have a lot of talent and we have two very ball-dominant players that can play either block and like to play in the low post,” Gasol told Postmedia before the game.

“It’s a matter of keeping that beautiful balance that always so hard to find. And once we have that discipline and urgency defensively on the ball and off the ball, communicating and all those beautiful things, The ball gets moving differently, we get out on the floor and it’s just a different look for other teams.”

A look too challenging to counteract. But give Steve Clifford’s group credit for battling throughout this season. They don’t go away and they fight.

They’re in for the biggest fight of the season on Tuesday. They’ll go home either way, but need to win to head back to Florida with the season still going.

The Raptors would love to avoid that trip, which would mean a number of days off before likely facing the Philadelphia 76ers in Round 2.

“For sure. We wanna finish it at the house,” Siakam said of Scotiabank Arena.

“That’s our objective and we go out there with that and knowing that we could definitely use some rest, for sure. But at the same time it’s an important game and we know coming in we want to just bring that same intensity we’ve brought the last three games and finish it up.”

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.